Vice president of student services Dan Frieri mentioned the possibility of placing a Student Government Association representative on a committee to maintain the College’s student-run radio station, WTSR-FM 91.3, during the general body meeting on Wednesday Sept. 15. Frieri noted he met with representatives of the station over the summer to discuss taking WTSR into what could be a financially unstable future.
“The long-term status of WTSR was not particularly positive,” said Frieri, senior accounting major, drawing from his impression of the meeting. “I met with Dean (John) Laughton and the general manager of WTSR, (Kevin Potucek), yesterday, and it turns out that WTSR has a whole planning committee being set up, talking about how to financially save WTSR. We might want to put someone from SGA (on this committee).”
Frieri mentioned that SGA plans to take a more active role in “getting WTSR more engaged on campus.” It will determine what sort of programming students want from WTSR and reporting those findings to Laughton and Potucek.
He informally polled SGA general body members on how they’d like to see WTSR become more ingrained in campus culture.
“Who thinks it would be cool to see more (College) sporting events covered?” Frieri asked. He also asked about whether members would like to see more programming from the station, as well as coverage of professional sporting events and political speeches.
A hand-raise vote tallied the results. The general body overwhelmingly supported station coverage of political speeches. It praised covering College sporting events as well, though less enthusiastically. It expressed little interest in seeing more programming or professional sports coverage, with less than half its members’ hands raised.
SGA announced that updates to Hausdoerffer and Phelps Halls’ driveway system have been completed. It also announced new lobbying initiatives, a possible partnership with WTSR and two SGA contests
open to the student body — one for its new logo and one for a school fight song.
Vice president of legal and governmental affairs Brian Block announced that improvements to student parking outside Hausdoerffer and Phelps, nearly a year in the making, were finished. He thanked Campus Police, grounds management, Brian Webb, a manager for the office of Risk Management Services, and the student committee on the project for their efforts.
“Now there are 15-minute parking lanes. It’s a lot safer and more convenient for students,” said Block, senior political science major.
Block also discussed an initiative his committee will tackle head-on this year — lobbying the state government, particularly in support of education reform.
Though the legal and governmental affairs committee has lobbied the state in the past, Block feels the time is ripe for new strategies. The committee intends to compile personal accounts from students who have been affected by cuts to education in New Jersey.
“Our goal here is to relate these stories to legislators who have those students as constituents,” Block said.
The SGA also announced two student contests. One will be to create a new logo for the SGA, which adopts a revised name – SG, or Student Government – in January. The other will be to compose a school fight song.
“We talked about different things the school doesn’t have that we could use, but we can’t legislate,” said executive president Olaniyi Solebo, junior political science major.
Winners will collect $100 and “bragging rights,” Solebo said. The contests are open to all students.
The SGA also named two new student-faculty liaisons. Senior management major Elyse Hitscherich will serve as campus police liaison. Sophomore business major Chelsea Tompkins will serve as facilities liaison.
Emily Brill can be reached at brill3@tcnj.edu.
